We Had To Fall Apart To Mend
by iamkellylouise
Summary: A painful memory pushed them apart. He left her distraught and alone. 10 years later and he turns up at SGH. Can she ever forgive him? Set in 2x18. MarkMeredith. Angst/Hurt/Love/Life.


**A/N: Set in 2x18. Not happy with the end **_**at all**_** but, ugh. This is for all of you patient readers of 'You're Not The Only One With Secrets' because I've been rubbish at updating it! I'm a little stumped with it at the minute but I'll get there, I promise! Anyway, hope this comes across how it did in my head. Much Love. Kelly. X.**

* * *

Mark literally couldn't believe his eyes when he saw a familiar dirty blonde working away at one of the computers, dressed in scrubs and a lab coat. The last time he's seen her she was wearing his Yankee's jersey and a pair of his boxers. He'll always remember that day. He knew he had to go for it. He just had to speak to her. He braced himself for the slap of his life. Because he knew he deserved it. He walked over and looked over her shoulder at the computer screen.

"Invasive non-cell with a history of COPD. That guy's pretty much a goner, huh?" he said with a playful smirk, he felt Meredith freeze at his voice, she slowly turned on her heel, her jaw dropping as they came face to face.

"What. Are you. Doing here?" she said firmly.

"I have some business to attend to" he said quietly "I didn't know you'd be here"

"Leave. Now. Before I do something to seriously risk my surgical career" she hissed.

"Oh come on Merry, you're not even a little bit happy to see me?"

"Are you serious?!" she asked incredulously, moving away from him as she continued to work "Go to hell Mark"

"Meredith" he said touching her arm, before she could pull away Mark was thrown to the floor with a punch, Meredith looked over in shock at the culprit. Derek.

"What the hell was that?!" she exclaimed.

"That. Was Mark."

"You slept with his wife!" Meredith shouted kicking Mark hard in the leg "Seriously Mark?! You are more of an asshole than I thought you were"

"Merry just let me explain" Mark said climbing to his feet and reaching out to her, she brought her hand up and slapped him hard on the face.

"You do not get to call me that, you lost the right to call me that 10 years ago"

"What?!" Derek, and Addison who had rushed over to check on Derek's hand, both exclaimed.

"Meet my ex-wife" Mark mumbled.

"Wait, what?" Derek stuttered "Meredith what is he talking about?"

"Oh seriously? You're the intern?" Mark groaned "This is just typical"

"Oh shut up!" Meredith snapped.

"Nice to see you've still got you're feisty streak Mer" Mark smirked tapping his hand on her shoulder.

"Don't you _dare_ touch me" she hissed "Go. Leave. Go home! You're not welcome here, by any of us, get out!"

"YOU FOUR MY OFFICE, NOW!" the Chief shouted from the top of the stairs, they all groaned and stomped off to his office, leaving a stunned nurses station in their wake.

~x~

"Sit down" the Chief said gesturing to the four chairs he'd had Patricia set up in front of his desk when he got the call of a fight on the surgical floor, Derek and Addison sat down straight away, Meredith pulled a chair as far away from Mark's as possible and sat down.

"Now is someone going to tell me what the _hell_ is going on?!" the Chief exclaimed "I don't even know who you are!" he said gesturing at Mark.

"This is the bastard I used to call my best friend" Derek grimaced "Until he slept with my wife"

"Right" the Chief nodded "And Meredith, would you like to explain _why_ you slapped him?"

"Because this ass is my ex-husband" she said with a grimace that matched Derek's "And to be honest Sir, you're lucky that's all I did"

"You...and, and you, were married?" the Chief stuttered pointing between Meredith and Mark.

"10 very long years ago" Mark nodded "Together for a year, married for half of that"

"How did we not know about this?!" Addison exclaimed "I'm guessing this is from your year in Boston?"

"Yeah" Mark nodded "I didn't really want to talk about it"

"You say that like it's my fault we ended" said Meredith angrily "But then you always did blame me for it"

"I did not blame you" Mark sighed "Don't say that, you know that's not true"

"Really? _Really _Mark?! Because I seem to remember quite a few 'If you took care of yourself more' comments coming my way"

"I was upset!" Mark exclaimed "I was upset and I lashed out"

"And then you left!" Meredith screeched standing up abruptly causing everyone to jump a little "You _left_ me, you left me 2 weeks after we buried our child Mark, our freaking daughter! Lily. Elizabeth. Sloan." she said towering over him "She was everything to me and she didn't even get a chance to live, I had to push her lifeless body out of me and then _bury_ her, and you left!" she sobbed, the tears spilling from her eyes, her breathing getting heavier by the second "I loved her Mark, so much, and losing her, losing her broke me, it _broke_ me, and y'know what? I go to her grave every year on the anniversary and I sit there all day and wait for you to show, I wait every single time and you never come, you _never_ come, next month marks 10 years since that day, and I don't even know how I'm going to get through it, and I don't know how you can sit there and act like your innocent in all of this, you blamed me for losing Lily and then you left so please, just leave, because I've waited long enough for you to show and when you do, it's not even for me, because since you, nobody has ever chosen me, because I'm damaged freaking goods and that, that is on you"

"Meredith" Mark whispered, he stood up and pulled her into him, she punched against him with ineffectual fists as she sobbed "I'm so sorry, I'm so so sorry" he mumbled into her hair "I'm so sorry"

"She, was, so, small" Meredith hiccuped.

"I know Mer, I remember" he said softly "I remember everything about her, remember everything you craved, every song you used to make me sing to your bump, everything and I can't even begin to tell you how sorry I am for doing that to you, I am _so_ so sorry"

"I can't do this" Meredith whispered pushing him away and running from the room, Mark hung his head low and let out a shaky breath.

"You're a poor excuse for a man you get that right?" Derek said angrily.

"Derek" Addison hissed.

"It's fine Addison" Mark said hoarsely "I'm, I'm just gonna go, I should go, I should never have come here, I'm sorry" he whispered "I'm so sorry" and with that he left the room.

~x~

"Mer? Meredith?" Cristina said knocking on Meredith's bedroom door "I'm coming in so you better not be naked" she said pushing it open, she was faced with Meredith sat on the floor in front of her closet, an open shoe box in front of her and what looked like a baby's onesie in her hands "Meredith, what's going on? You disappeared after you went to the Chief's office with the Shepards and that guy, people are saying he's your ex-husband, and that he was the guy Addison slept with"

"They're not lying" Meredith said quietly not looking up at her, Cristina stepped further into the room and sat on the floor next to Meredith.

"Talk to me Meredith"

"I was 18, he was 10 years older" Meredith said quietly, she put her hands into the shoe box and pulled out a photograph handing it over to her, it showed an 18 year old Meredith and a 28 year old Mark outside of Boston City Hall smiling broadly at the camera "We'd been together for 6 months and it, it was totally spur of the moment, and I was so happy, even with my Mom being well, my Mom, completely disapproving, she hated Mark, told me I was making a huge mistake and despite that I was happy, we were both happy"

"What happened?"

"I got pregnant a few weeks after, by accident, I was scared, petrified but, I wanted to do it, I had Mark so, I wanted to do it, and everything was good, we were still happy, we had all the scans and check-ups and everything, we found out it was a girl at 18 weeks, he came home two days later with this" Meredith smiled holding out the pink onesie, 'Baby Girl Sloan' emblazoned in purple across the chest "I couldn't wait to bring her home in it. But then in the middle of the 6th month something didn't feel right, I couldn't feel her and, she was a kicker, she was always moving about, and I couldn't feel her so we went to the hospital, just to get checked out and, when I left the next day, she was in the morgue" Meredith said with a sob, Cristina reached out and took her hand "I had to deliver her and, and it was horrible, it hurt and I couldn't stop crying and, she was lifeless, there was nothing there, we buried her a week later, Lily Elizabeth Sloan" she said softly running the onesie through her fingers "He left 2 weeks after that"

"Oh Mer" Cristina sighed "You should have told me"

"There was no point" Meredith sighed "I, I don't like talking about it, it hurts to talk about it, I think about it, d'you know last week, when I had my hand on that bomb, there was a really small part of me that just wanted it to go off, so I could be there on her 10th birthday next month, I mean, I don't want to die, I'm not suicidal or anything I just, I wanted to be there, I want to know her"

"What, what do you need? Tequila? An inappropriate man?"

"No" Meredith said with a laugh "Just sit here with me"

"Ok"

~x~

"You don't have to be here" Cristina said in the locker room the next day.

"I need to work" Meredith replied "I'm fine"

"The Chief will understand"

"Cristina, I'm _fine_" Meredith stressed.

"Ok, assignments" Bailey said walking into the locker room "Karev and Yang Burke needs you, O'Malley with me, Stevens with Shepard and Grey with Montgomery-Shepard"

"You sure you're fine" Cristina muttered, Meredith glared at her "Ok ok, I'll see you later"

"Grey" Bailey said as Meredith went to leave.

"Yes Dr Bailey?"

"I don't know the ins and outs of what happened yesterday but if you need some more time…."

"I'm fine Dr Bailey, just fine" Meredith sighed.

"But if…."

"Dr Bailey, honestly, I am fine"

"Ok then Grey, Dr Montgomery-Shepard awaits you"

"Thanks"

~x~

"Dr Montgomery-Shepard, I'm your intern for today" Meredith said approaching Addison.

"Oh" Addison said with surprise "Are you…."

"Let's just do this once, I'm fine, I'm ok to work, I've done all my crazy and now I'm back so, where do you want me?"

"Could use some help running labs on my pre-ops and then you can scrub in on a c-section in an hour"

"Great" Meredith smiled.

~x~

"Hey there baby girl" Meredith said softly as she checked on one of the NICU baby's "You're doing very well in here, I think you'll be home in no time" she smiled "You look a lot like my Lily did, well, you look better than she did, bigger, but, you look like her, that's why I come up here sometimes, to look at the babies, just to imagine for a second that my Lily is one of them, that's a little pathetic isn't it" Meredith said with a small chuckle.

"It's not pathetic"

"Oh uh, hey" Meredith stuttered looking up and seeing Addison stood in the doorway "How much of that did you hear?"

"Not much, I wasn't purposely eavesdropping don't worry" Addison smirked "But it's, it's not pathetic, if it helps you get through it then, it's not pathetic"

"I can't believe this, any of this is happening, that my Mark is, your Mark, that he's _that _Mark, it's so…."

"Insane?"

"Yeah" Meredith laughed.

"He wasn't himself, after Boston, for the first year or so at least, he wasn't himself"

"It's not something you get past at the click of the fingers" Meredith said letting the baby in front of her grip onto her finger "Truth is, I won't ever get past it"

"Nobody expects you too" Addison said softly, placing a comforting hand on Meredith's shoulder.

"I miss him" Meredith said sadly "I miss, I miss what we used to be, I miss my husband and I really wish, I wish my last memory of him wasn't him walking out of the door of our apartment with a suitcase, or having the divorce papers turn up a week later"

"You deserve better"

Meredith looked up and met her eyes "So do you"

~x~

"Dr Shepard" Meredith said stepping into the research room.

"Meredith" he said looking up from his computer.

"Dr Shepard, Dr Montgomery-Shepard needs you on a consult when you have some time"

"I'll be up in an hour"

"Thank you Dr Shepard" Meredith nodded, she turned to leave but he called out her name.

"Yes?" she said turning back to face him.

"You could have told me" he said softly.

"I don't talk about it" Meredith said quietly "It's, it's a time in my life I'd rather forget, surely you can understand that"

"Of course I do" he nodded "I'm kind of surprised he didn't tell me y'know, we're, we were, best friends, we told each other everything back then"

"He might have made a mistake in the end Derek but it broke him too"

"I'm sorry you had to go through that Meredith"

"Yeah, me too" Meredith said sadly.

**1 month later.**

"Hi Lily, it's Mommy" Meredith said softly as she sat cross legged in front of Lily's grave "You would have been 10 years old today, and you'd be in the 5th grade, we'd probably be having a birthday party, with cake and ice cream, and balloons and presents, lots of presents, and you would have had loads of friends who loved you, I love you sweetie, and even though Daddy doesn't come, he loves you too, I know he does"

"So does she"

Meredith turned around to see Mark standing there with a small paper bag.

"You came" Meredith whispered, Mark sat down next to Meredith.

"I come every year"

"But, I wait" Meredith stuttered "I wait and you never come"

"I come on the due date" Mark said sadly "Usually on the anniversary I get really really drunk, try and numb the pain"

"I do that on the due date" Meredith said with a faint laugh "You should have told me that"

"I know" Mark nodded "But I didn't know how too"

"What's in the bag?"

Mark smiled a little and pulled out a pink frosted cupcake with a single candle pushed into the top "I sing Happy Birthday every year, on the anniversary and on the due date, and whenever I come I bring a pink frosted cupcake with a candle, I thought we could do it together"

"Ok" Meredith whispered.

"Ok" Mark said quietly, he pulled out a small box of matches and lit the candle "I'm not singing it on my own"

Meredith let out a laugh "Ok then, you ready?"

"Ready"

"Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to Lily, Happy Birthday to you" they both sang quietly before blowing out the candle.

"I'm so sorry Mark" Meredith said tearfully.

"Me too Merry, me too" Mark said wrapping his arms around her "I'm sorry for everything, everything I did, everything I said, everything"

"Let's just sit here" Meredith said leaning into his embrace.

"Ok" Mark whispered.

~x~

"I should get going, I have a flight to catch" Meredith said standing up.

"Yeah, me too" Mark sighed "Share a cab?"

"Sure" Meredith nodded, she stepped closer to the headstone and kissed her fingers and pressed them onto the engraving "I love you so much Lily, Mommy misses you so much, be safe in heaven my angel" she stepped back and wiped the stray tears from her cheek, Mark stepped forward and repeated the process Meredith took "Daddy will come and see you on your due date baby girl, expect to see me twice a year from now on Lily, your Mommy too" he said briefly looking back at Meredith who nodded a little "Be safe angel, I love you" he stepped back and took a breath "Cab?"

"Cab" Meredith nodded.

~x~

"I guess this is goodbye then" Mark said sadly as Meredith's flight was called.

"Yeah" Meredith nodded "This is goodbye"

Mark pulled her into a hug and kissed the top of her head "I'll see you in 3 months ok? No more drinking the pain away"

"No more drinking the pain away" she agreed "Thank you for coming"

"I owe you that much Merry" he said pulling her back a little and cupping her face "I miss you"

"I know" Meredith whispered.

'_Last call for Flight 309 to Seattle, Last call'_

"I really need to go" she said pulling away "I'll see you soon"

"See you soon" Mark nodded.

~x~

"Hey, you're back" Cristina said with a small smile "How'd it go?"

"He came" Meredith said quietly.

"Seriously?!"

"Yeah, he, he said the reason I never see him there is because he goes out there on the due date"

"Which is when you drink"

"Which is when I drink" Meredith nodded "He usually drinks on the anniversary, I'm, I'm going out there on the due date, we're both going, we're doing both dates now, I think, I think we have too"

"And you're ok?"

"I'm ok" Meredith nodded.

~x~

**1 month later.**

"Mark?" Addison said as she approached the nurses station to see a familiar figure standing there.

"Addie hey, have you seen Meredith?" he asked impatiently.

"She's, she's with Derek today" Addison stuttered "They're upstairs"

"Great" Mark said rushing off towards the elevator.

"What are you doing here Mark?" Addison asked as they stepped into it.

"Don't worry, I'm not here for you" Mark said rocking back and forth from his heels to his toes, Addison made a small nod and smirked a little at his anxious nature, they stepped out onto the upper floor seconds later, they spotted Derek and Meredith working on opposite sides of the nurses station.

"Merry" Mark said walking up to her.

"Mark" she said with surprise "What are you doing here!?"

"We're still married" he blurted.

"Wha….what?!" Meredith stuttered "What are you talking about?! I signed the papers and…." Mark put his hand into his bag and pulled out a set of papers handing them over to her "I was clearing out my apartment and found them in a box of my old office stuff"

"You didn't send them" she whispered "Why didn't you send them?!" she exclaimed hitting him with them.

"I forgot" Mark said with a slight laugh "I know how ridiculous that sounds but, I forgot to send them"

"So we're, we're still married"

"We're still married" Mark nodded.

"So what are we going to do about it?" she said with her hands on her hips.

"Not a thing" Mark said leaning close towards her "Because Merry, I love you, I've been in love with you for….ever and, if you let me, I'll spend every day for the rest of our lives making you feel the same way"

"Mark" Meredith whispered shakily.

"Just one more chance Mer" he said taking her hand "One more chance"

"I can't do it again" she said dropping her head a little "I can't go through it all again if you leave and I…."

"I'm not going anywhere" Mark said firmly "I love you"

Meredith looked up and met his eyes "Yeah" she breathed "Well I love you too"

Mark let a grin spread across his face, he picked her up and swung her around kissing her hard on the lips "So, what d'you say? Wanna be Mrs Sloan again?"

"More than anything" Meredith smiled.

"Alright alright, put each other down" Addison said rolling her eyes.

"Sorry" Meredith laughed "I get off in an hour, I'll meet you at the bar across the street ok?"

"Ok" Mark smiled kissing her again "I'll see you later then"

"See you later then" Meredith smiled.

"Go now" said Derek.

"What?" Meredith said snapping her head towards him.

"I can take it from here, go now"

"Derek I don't…."

"Meredith I won't offer again"

"Well uh, thank you Derek" she smiled.

Mark sighed a little and walked over to Derek slowly "Look man" he said as quietly as he could "I know you hate me but, if we could maybe find some time, to talk I, I'd really appreciate it, you'll always be my brother Derek and I hate myself for what I did to you, so please, just hear me out, not now but, one day soon"

"I'll think about it" Derek said equally as quiet "But if you walk out on her again, you'll have a lot of people to answer to"

"I'm not going anywhere" Mark replied "I'll see you soon then"

"Yeah, I guess you will"

"Ready to go Mrs Sloan?" Mark smiled turning back to Meredith.

"Yes Mr Sloan" Meredith smiled taking his hand.

~x~

"I can't believe we're still married" Meredith laughed as she snuggled into Mark's body on the sofa and hour later.

"I know" Mark smirked "You know I need someone to remind me to do these things, pay bills, send letters, you used to remind me"

"Well, since you were the one who filed for the divorce I figured you'd remember"

"Maybe it's because I didn't really want it"

"You should have come back Mark, we could have worked through it, you, you just left"

"I'm so sorry Mer" Mark said kissing the top of her head "So so sorry"

"I know" Meredith said softly "Let's, let's just sit here now ok?"

"Ok" Mark smiled "I love you so much, I'll never stop"

"I love you too"

~x~

**A little over 5 years later.**

"Hey baby girl it's Mommy" Meredith smiled standing in front of Lily's grave.

"And Daddy" said Mark.

"And Daddy" Meredith laughed "And this is Amber Lily Sloan, your baby sister" Meredith said smiling down at the one month old in her arms "Now just because we have another daughter doesn't mean we love you any less, or that she's a replacement for you, we won't stop coming to see you Lily, we promise"

"Your a big sister now Lily, so you have to watch out for her, be her guardian angel"

"We love you Lily, we hope your happy" Meredith smiled "Be safe in heaven my angel"

"Cupcake time" Mark smiled pulling a paper bag out from the bottom of Ambers stroller, he took the pink frosted cupcake out and lit a candle on top. And as they sang Happy Birthday on what would have been Lily's 15th small tears fall down their cheeks. They would never forget the events of that year or the time that followed but they knew they had their second chance right there in Meredith's arms, and they knew in that moment that no more chances would be needed.

~x~

It takes one person to forgive, it takes two people to be reunited. **Lewis B. Smedes.**


End file.
